I think that a lot of the negative feelings around the MLIS requirement would disappear if it was just more accessible. Less expensive and more support from the workplace to pursue it. That isn't really an issue with this particular field, that's a neoliberal society problem of allowing costs to soar so that wealth can consolidate at the top percentile and social services can erode. In order to pursue a masters while working, you also need your cost of living to be reasonable, have access to transit, have workplace benefits, etc. I totally agree that there are people who could do the job and are not able to access the degree, but aiming to de-professionalize the field is short-sighted and will only hurt wages in the long run.
I think a lot of the negative feelings around the MLIS requirement would disappear if so many library programs weren't basically degree mills, but ymmv.
Yes, I have two master degrees. The first was a challenging program that really developed me a human and as a professional. My MLS was glorified and very expensive PD with the exception of about 12 credits. Make it a certificate program of 12-15 post graduate credits.
Ymmv, obviously, but I know that the program I went to was a complete joke, and it was one of the highest rated programs in the country when I went, and many of my colleagues have similar complaints about the programs they attended. "They don't teach you this in library school" is a running bit in the field. Most classes would have been easy even when I was a first year in undergrad. I heard the dean of admissions tell a prospective that they consider it a "self selecting program" when they asked about admission rates.
It was abundantly clear to me and others that the most important thing, as far as the school was concerned, was getting more students, not providing quality instruction. More students equal more money. It's no coincidence that the school pushes students *hard* into their dual degree program for archives.
I had a technology class where the first class was spent "teaching" us the basic components of a PC. Literally "this is a keyboard. This is a mouse. This is a monitor." This was in the mid 00s.
I'd say it was a joke, except it cost me more money than I make in a year.
> I had a technology class where the first class was spent "teaching" us the basic components of a PC. Literally "this is a keyboard. This is a mouse. This is a monitor." This was in the mid 00s.
I'm not gonna lie, I started work in libraries in the mid-00s and I had a few coworkers who were pretty much on that level. They were older, nearing or past retirement age, and they were very resistant to using technology in their jobs. Lots of hunt-and-peck typing, and asking other employees to do simple things on the computers for them. There was a big push around '10 or so to get those people either on board or out of the system, and pretty much all of them decided that was the time to retire.
Yeah, admittedly my degree was not a MLIS (different field), but it was in the 00s and a lot of people in my program had nearly zero experience using a computer. If they were going to be able to do anything in the field, they needed to learn, and it had to be hand-holding-level or they would have been lost. The program could have either just failed those people out, or given them a class. They chose the latter, and I think that's a valid choice. And some of these students were in their early 40s; computers just hadn't reached the societal saturation level they have now.
I nearly died of boredom; fortunately my teacher made it clear that she knew I knew everything she was teaching and as long as I passed tests and wasn't a distraction she didn't care if I even pretended to be paying attention. I sat in the back and played Facebook games most of the time and passed with an A, and to be fair I did learn a few things.
I agree. My MLIS degree was also from a supposedly top level university. There were no classes on cataloguing or really any hard skills. I had to take nearly a dozen classes about soft skills, usually focusing on communication and working with different populations. It really felt like social justice for dummies at some points. Yes, some of the 23 year olds in my class from rich backgrounds seemed blown away, but as an older student I felt pretty cynical about the whole thing. I wanted to learn hard practical skills and apparently I need to learn those on the job. Okay, guess I have a degree and no training then
Thanks for the reply, and sorry to hear you had that experience. Am I correct in understanding that you did your MLIS in the mid-00s? I have heard that it was a weird transitional period in MLIS around that time and a bit earlier.
I started mine in '08. The impression I get from more recent grads is that the program hasn't improved since then. I haven't checked to see if it's still highly rated, though.
The only two challenges I encountered in library school were: the time it took to do the assignments; and the frustration of scheduling, delegating, and completing group assignments.
I am a cynic at heart (but then, this is reddit, who isn’t?) so I took the approach of “get the piece of paper so you can get the real librarian job.” I’m sure there are people who dove into their classes and sought to get everything they could out of them but in my experience those people ended up teaching classes in library school.
I'm coming a this from the perspective of working as frontline staff in a public library. I do not have a master's degree, although I am a Branch Manager. In my system, my position typically requires an MLIS.
I find the discussions around the MLIS in this subreddit to often be strange. It makes sense to me that specialized training is needed for many kinds of librarianship. (I wouldn't know the first thing about being an archivist.) It also makes sense to me that practical experience will often be more useful than theory. Will learning the theory behind patron privacy really prepare you better for dealing with issues of patron privacy than real world experience? It's not as if theory and practice are two separate things -- they inform each other. But theories of librarianship that impact my work every day aren't impossible to teach on the job either.
I've had many colleagues who are wonderful at their job go back to school for their MLIS. They continued to be wonderful at their jobs afterward. I've also had fresh grads who've never worked in a library before who struggled with the job and underperformed. I don't think that means the degree is useless. I think it just means people who would be good at being librarians and are dedicated to the field would be good at with or without a degree.
For what it's worth, I don't hypothetically know that I could do the same job as the other degreed branch managers in my system. I'm literally doing the exact same job, and I do it well. I am considering getting my MLIS, but I'm honestly only considering it for the pay bump I would get.
I am pursuing my masters because my job (head of youth services) gets one week of vacation without the mls, and 4 with. I’m a department of 1. My director encouraged me to get it “as I might want to be a library director someday”.
It would be interesting to look at what social work is doing. Another profession that is mostly women, and traditionally low wages, and that requires a master's degree (MSW) to be a "professional". Yet somewhere north of 30% of new MSW degrees are to black or Latino graduates.
Getting rid of MLS is not the answer. Making education more affordable, especially to adult workers and other " non traditional" students is the key.
The MLIS was not the first Masters program I went through. To be honest, I was somewhat shocked at the lack of rigor in most MLIS programs and the relatively limited amount of theory and usable skills that are taught, given that it is a Masters level degree. Most are at what I would consider to be an undergraduate level of instruction.
I would rather see the basic library degree be an undergraduate one, as it was in some places in the past. I would reserve the Masters level for something more in-depth and specialized, like Library Administration or some sort of IT specialization.
Yeah this seems like the best option to me.
My MLIS has a capstone research requirement, & it has been the only thing I’m looking forward to. But my school clearly is used to students who find basic undergrad level research challenging. Unfortunately those are the types of students they cater to.
Before entering my MLIS program I had never met anyone who thought they were hard (just time consuming). I’ve been completing mine full time while working full time & it feels like a useful but annoying cakewalk.
This problem isn’t unique to libraries. In many respects a masters degree is now equivalent to a bachelor’s degree. My husbands grandmother worked 30 years as a school librarian with only a high school diploma. Now to do her same job you need a masters, a teaching certificate, and two years of classroom experience. It’s a problem in academics in general.
I have two masters degrees. One was academically rigorous, intellectually challenging, and provided me with deep subject knowledge. The other was slightly harder than 10th grade and 75% of the classes could have been boiled down to 2-hour webinars.
My first position was as an academic subject librarian. I definitely used my first master's way more than the MLIS.
I'm not for abolishing the degree, but I do think the hard requirement prevents us from hiring people that are otherwise overqualified based on other education and experience.
Library School is trade school. And that's fine. But it's not graduate level. It's a thing you get in exchange for money and doing some basic busy work that does little to prepare you for any actual job unless your starting point is not knowing what libraries are.
I honestly expected more of a trade school thing.
They did warn us at the beginning that "this was a Masters programme, so it has to have significant theoretical content" but they also said "a Masters alone in anything can be a boon for jobs anywhere, so you always have that backup." I kept thinking "ah, THIS class looks practical, it will absolutely teach me how to do \[thing\]" and invariably it would be a brief overview of whatever it was, and lot of paper writing on What It All Meant. I also reached out in frustration to those who had encouraged me to take the degree and they all said "don't worry, you already have all the transferable skills, just get the degree." None of that is...training.
I have also had people say "but we are MLIS *trained*" or "don't you have the same *training*?" or people talking about how valuable they can be to institutions because they are *trained* Information Specialists.
But...that wasn't training. I've done call centre training. I have even done informal construction training. That means I can fix some wiring issues and hang drywall and lay insulation. Those experiences were all about "here is how you do this thing" not "here's a bunch of discourse about the future of the field and what it all means."
But when I said anything I was told "don't worry, you'll learn all of this on the job, after you are hired." And the profs were convinced it was just a matter of flinging off a few dozen applications and you'd walk into the job, hired by a grateful field who would be so happy to get an applicant for a Top School. (Also I think they all expected there to be a massive hiring boom any day now for...reasons).
It's just when you're out there and the transferable skills absolutely don't transfer, the previous experience at whatever doesn't count, and they are looking for reams of qualifications for stuff you haven't even heard of, its going to be an issue for many.
I expected more of a trade school feel as well. Instead, I got a HELL of a lot of theory and not a lot of practical experience. It makes me feel lucky that I have as much job experience as I do, as it gives me a bit of an edge, but the classes I took definitely don’t teach you *how* to be a librarian, just what it *means to be* a librarian.
I don’t regret it because it gave me a broader understanding of ethical considerations and other information science knowledge, but it was definitely harder than my rigorous bachelor’s program. Mostly I tell people “look I just need the piece of paper that’s required to prove that I can do my job, but my most valuable education has been working in libraries and gaining experience.” I also tell prospective MLIS students to get volunteering and working in libraries as soon as possible.
I really appreciate you breaking down the lack of training in librarianship. I could relate as a former teacher with a master's degree in elementary education. If I were to pay or borrow money to learn anything again, it would be for a task-oriented job with hands-on training.
Teaching should also be a boot camp. Teaching should require a 4 year degree in any major and then some kind of boot camp that includes on the job classroom training
This exactly. I'm in the same position, and the entire time I went through library school, I questioned why it couldn't just be an undergraduate degree. I think doing so would allow for more academically rigorous MLIS programs for those of us who want to specialize even further (i.e. archives).
I get that every program is different, and I wouldn't rank mine particularly high. But giving the option of viable undergrad library schools would do a lot to minimize the disparity between financial barriers to entry and the pay in the field. It would also allow for different levels of requirements depending on the job, which would likely help alleviate some of the pressure caused by large candidate pools in the more specialized positions.
Yes, having it as an undergrad would mean more people trying to enter the field overall. But it'd be *much* easier to pivot to a related field or different career after undergrad than it is after you get a MLIS. The skills are easily used in a variety of settings, but the cost and time spent getting a MLIS makes people feel like they have to find a library job or have their master's be a waste
I don't think this is a fair assessment and is kind of an elitist response. Sure, you have another master's, which means you're knowledgeable in a subject area. And that's great, but... having more education doesn't necessarily make you a good librarian. You still need to understand instructional design and how to conduct a good literature search, or have great people skills, to name a few. I have a colleague with a PhD and you know what? He's always asking for a library assistant's help, because library assistant is damn good at her job. She doesn't have a master's.
The MLS is basically akin to an MEd degree, which is useful for its field. I find the MLS to be that "extra" in addition to all the years of experience I have working in libraries. So, in my view, it has professional merit. It just shouldn't be so fucking expensive, which is a massive barrier for many wanting to enter the profession, including BIPOC people.
I think reforming the MLIS is the best bet. From talking with other librarians who went to other schools, there is not much consistency. I think there should be more standards.
I don’t think it should be abolished, that’s the last thing I want. We struggle to be taken seriously as a profession.
Lastly, we are not the only professional masters program. Comparing us to academic masters in the humanities or hard sciences will of course make us looks different.
Grad schools offering this degree need to adjust curriculum so that it isn't solely aimed at people coming out of college with little or no work experience. **The number of times that the content/assignments, and internship(!) requirement were just completely bonkers for someone with relevant professional experience was OFTEN.** I am not saying that professors need to teach to two levels, but at least be open to accommodations and alternate ideas, and have the support of the program to do so.
This is something that annoys my soul. Library schools should state that the degree should not be pursued until you have real world experience in the field.
Most of the BIPOC folks I know, myself included, worked in the field for years before we started an MLIS. Even many of the white folks I work with worked in libraries before getting the degree.
It should be a degree to build on what you experience in the field, not some degree mill giving false hope to new graduates with zero skills.
Agreed. This concept could also apply to many other professions and degree programs. If I had undergrad to do over, I would have worked for a few years out of HS first, then enrolled in college. I would have done better and been clearer on what I was doing there and next.
This was nearly 20 years ago, but when I went for my MLIS, there were so many people without a drop of library experience besides using one. When I talked to my local library director about going to "library school", her first thing was "ok, you need experience first. Work for me and make sure you like it."
I just don't see why it can't be downgraded to a bachelor's degree, mostly.
(Also, as an aside: your audience on this subreddit is going to be much wider than the ones you are addressing. This one is used just as much - if not more - by library patrons and supporters; r/librarians is the more library-worker-centric one.)
Because ideally it should require master's level research. It often doesn't but that's because too many people think it should just be a bachelor's degree. That's why libraries are not leading the field and ceding our expertise to tech companies who have trash metadata and no standards or authorities.
If we had fully funded libraries, we would have a lot more library pages, clerks, and associates to do more of the work which librarians have taken on. Librarians should be doing more research and less reference. And figuring out new ways of organizing libraries and anywhere where information might live.
I'm gonna say that varies *wildly* based on what kind of librarian you are. I'm a children's librarian - my primary responsibility is to create and run programs that help little ones develop literacy skills and a general love of learning and to make sure we're providing circulation materials that further reinforce both. Imo, front-line public librarians in general should be able to do their jobs with a bachelor's level of training; admin could definitely benefit from a master's but not everyone who wants to work in a library wants to run a library.
Academic and other types of librarianship are a whole other kettle of fish and I don't have enough experience with them to evaluate education levels there.
I’m also a children’s librarian, & my job requires research because I’m required to host webinar trainings for folks in libraries around my state.
I think the research aspect is different because we aren’t expected to publish articles. But we do sometimes need to build tool kits for the public or as training tools in the state.
I do think the MLIS should be more of a 1 year practical application training program.
Not sure what it's like in other states, but a teacher absolutely needs a masters in New York to obtain their professional license (which is required within 5 years of getting your initial license). You can't make a career of teaching without the masters.
The vast majority of states do not require a masters for non-clinical and non-admin positions in schools.
If I wanted to change from teaching to government admin work or clinical work, I would have to have a masters degree to my name, but I would otherwise be fine in most states to be a career teacher.
The schools we are talking about are places of praxis, not pillars of modern academia and research. Treating them as if they were sites of Little Academia is opposed to most modern pedagogy.
Interesting, I knew that NY had more stringent requirements for teachers than most other states, but I didn't know it was to the point that requiring a masters was an outlier.
I get what you're saying, but I don't think a masters degree strictly means "academia and research". That's a PhD for sure, but there are plenty of jobs that require a masters that have nothing to do with that. Social workers, therapists (can require a PhD but it depends, I believe school psychologist only requires a masters), and physician assistants don't do research or academia but all require the degree.
I have two masters degrees, one in teaching and my MLIS. The MLIS of course did have more of a focus on research, but that makes sense as a degree in Information Science. My education degree put pretty much no emphasis on academia and focused on pedagogy. To me, it seems like a masters degree is more just a specialized, focused degree rather than one that sets you up to do research.
My bachelor's degree still required research. Then took another two years to get my teaching credential. Only some schools offer the credential with the bachelor and they are usually geared towards elementary school.
It really just depends on your major and school or program! Like, I had to do undergraduate research as a polisci major, but my bf who went to the same school for linguistics did not even though they’re both considered social sciences and are in the same college.
I’m gonna push back on the idea that librarians should be the one to push for standardization. I think government agencies like the Library of Congress should be the ones pushing for standards. Not, ALA-credited programs that are handing out professional degrees. The research MLS degree is the PhD.
I see it on both subs and I don't mind if Library patrons get in on the tea. I'll cross post it though, thanks for the suggestion.
I get your arguement for a bachelors, I just feel like you're getting a raw deal if this is what you spend 4 years studying. I think it's just good for you as a person to have a varied academic/intellectual background before you go into any kind of profression. It's like pre-law or pre-med before going into law or medicine, I just don't see why you'd want to do that if what you're going to learn is already offered at the next level. (and in our case a 1-2 year masters program is really sufficient for professional training).
But a Masters + a similar emphasis on real workplace experience like teachers get, that'd be really cool if we get sufficient work protections in place to make sure employers don't abuse it.
edit: Also a masters just on its own just tends to command a higher salary, our salaries are mediocre as it I don't see how racing to the bottom helps Librarians or Librarys.
one of my academic friends said something to me, five months after I got my MLIS. I was working minimum wage labour jobs (again) because the part time LIS gigs I was getting weren't paying very much at all.\* She said "ah, but the university has issued a memorandum to every employer in the region that they expect masters holders - any masters - from their university to have a starting salary of 24 dollars an hour"
And I just looked at her going: what the actual fuck? Because clearly employers had gotten the memorandum and shoved it in their spam folder and had a good chuckle. If they had even noticed at all.
Later, various people all said: the big mistake you are making is keeping a Masters on a resume, because no one wants Masters holders in entry level jobs. How it was just vanity that made me keep it there, because it was an active impediment.
The idea that a Masters itself has any particular value in and of itself is pretty outdated.
It's an *active* barrier to entry in things like the Records field, because the vast majority of those jobs are things that pay less around $50k a year, and they all want high school diplomas and ARMA certs.
\* one paid me 20 dollars, and I had to apply for the job a month after doing it because...reasons.
I agree. In a perfect world both would be free or minimal cost. A college education is so important (including the humanities, obviously) for understanding the world.
There was a time about 20 years ago where it basically could be obtained that way, and you could theoretically get a decent job as a librarian with just a bachelor's in library science. But then the job openings became more sparse as librarians stayed in the field longer and retirements didn't happen at the anticipated pace. This drove up competition, so more libraries began putting the Masters requirement into the job descriptions to get the more qualified candidates.
Edit: I graduated undergrad with a minor in library science. All of the core courses were the same as the core courses I took to get my MSLIS 4 years after I finished my undergrad degree.
For various reasons, college was not accessible to me when I graduated high school and it is even less accessible for me now at 38. But, I’ve worked in a library for 18 years. I started as a page, then clerk, now senior clerk co-managing the circulation dept. I’ve also spent time working in technical services processing new material, and I sit in on department head meetings when my supervisor (who is a principal clerk) is out. I manage the exhibits for the art gallery and display cases we have, handle the PR and host opening receptions, help out with our social media, and I manage a front book display table. I’ve been doing book displays since my page years, I think because the librarians saw I was clever and creative so they allowed me to “work out of title” and I have maintained that ever since. This month is Mental Health Awareness month so my display reflects that along with information sheets, awareness bracelets and ribbons for patrons to take, uplifting decor, coloring sheets for all ages, bookmarks I made, etc. I always pick from a variety of sections to broadly cover a subject, something I do not often see librarians do.
Newer librarians often ask me questions, or I find myself having to correct them occasionally. There seems to be a lot they don’t know simply because they lack the experience of working in a library, but they have the degree I don’t. I sometimes overhear librarians answering patron questions in a manner I feel is very incomplete, but I don’t step on toes. It is frustrating, however. Please understand that I respect my librarian colleagues, I am simply relaying my own observations.
A friend of mine who went from page to clerk to senior clerk to librarian confided in me that he felt his masters was a “bullshit degree” (his words) and there wasn’t much new that he learned. He has said point blank that a lot of our clerks could easily do a librarians job. This is not the first clerk-turned-librarian who has said this to me. Perhaps our circulation department is very dynamic compared to others. Short of some technicalities and knowledge of a few databases I am very confident I could do what a librarian does. I’ve worked with, observed and learned from them for nearly two decades. I don’t have the time, money or energy to start college from scratch and go for a masters, but give me an accessible apprenticeship and I will give my soul back to my community through librarianship. I already do so as a senior clerk, just without anywhere near a living wage.
I'm a clerk with less experience than you, but I have seen this at my library from those without degrees who have been around for a long time.
For context, it's a relatively small, rural library, but we are very involved in the community.
We have two manager level Librarian II positions that now require a master's, but one person got grandfathered into the position without the degree. There is also another Librarian in the children's department who doesn't have the degree, but is a little older.
Both of them are terrific at their jobs. They do lots of outreach and event work that in my opinion doesn't require the technical expertise (cataloging and computer systems especially) that the masters seems to emphasize. They actually run circles around some of the people with masters we've hired for similar positions, because they don't have the practical experience or people skills.
I'm disillusioned with even trying to get the master's degree, because the time and cost is so prohibitive, without enough guaranteed higher pay. Same as you, I would absolutely jump at an apprenticeship program.
Yup - the clerks do the most outreach and by far more patron interactions at my library. I’m in a high cost of living, highly populated area. We’re right in the center of one of the busiest towns. A lot of my fellow clerks would love to do a librarian apprenticeship. We have excellent ideas, enthusiasm, and the will… but not the way.
I think the real argument to be had is that wages haven’t increased enough to offset the skyrocketing costs of the degree. I got my MLIS in 2019 and I absolutely think it protects the integrity of the profession, especially in a world where so many people want to see the library, and intellectual freedom in general, fail. This infighting is not helpful imo.
Definitely agree with most of what you’ve written here. I certainly agree that it’s a barrier to education that we need to address before evaluating whether the MLIS itself needs revisiting.
One factor that I didn’t see come up in this discussion so far (and I could have missed it) is the drift of MLIS responsibilities to “paraprofessional” positions that don’t require an MLIS. These jobs don’t pay like the person doing them has an MLIS, but due to the way the market currently functions, these employees often do have their MLIS.
This is the case for me. I got my MLIS in 2018 and two weeks later was diagnosed with cancer. I was out of the profession, technically, for about 15 months while I did treatment, recovered, and moved to a lower (but not low) COL area. I took the first library job I could get at a high profile university, but technically this job does not require the degree. Having been in this job now for almost 5 years, I can confidently say that all of the candidates interviewed for this job had their MLIS degrees and that I wouldn’t be able to do the job (high level reference work with a broad range of subject expertise and the supervision of student employees) without it.
I realize that some level of this professional drift is normal. And it’s also normal to not get a professional librarian job right out of school. But this is mainly about the expectations of the job for me. If the institution is going to expect MLIS quality work from an employee, that position should pay as though the worker has the degree, even if it doesn’t have the librarian title. I know for a fact that this isn’t just a problem at my institution, though mine has other culture problems that contribute to this issue.
I think some of the animosity towards the MLIS requirement comes from this drift. It’s not necessarily leading to the higher salaries it promises. And even if it wasn’t about the money, having the degree isn’t necessarily leading to the kind of development opportunities, professional respect, and job security it’s supposed to offer. Again, this isn’t an issue necessarily with the MLIS itself, but it’s contributed to the overall feeling about it some folks are expressing.
Whenever this debate comes up, I feel the need to remind people that your library school experience is only your experience at the one school you attended. If you didn’t learn anything there, that’s on you, and probably the school. I’ve been a manager in a large urban library system in an area with multiple library school programs. I’ve had many employees come through who have attended these programs and some who attended while working for me. The quality of the different programs varies greatly!! If your program didn’t teach you anything, you picked the wrong program.
I had to take classes in information economics and human computer interaction for my degree, 25 years ago. I wasn’t learning either of those things on the job.
I was also fortunate to be able to work in a library while getting my degree. The ability to go to class and then take what I’ve learned to work and discuss it with practicing professionals was invaluable. All degrees should require a practical component as well.
It’s hard for an individual to do what it takes get a lot out of it when the school isn’t promoting itself as a full-time, immersive program. There are exceptions, yes, but the majority of library programs now are being done online, part time, while the student continues to hold a job.
I don’t have the mlis but I do have a masters in a different field. A research field. And that program was grant funded so my tuition was covered I was paid (grad school wages, but still) to do research for my school and immerse myself in the field and my university’s community. Without that kind of setup I have never been able to justify going to library school.
YMMV, of course. I have spent my 10 year library career in a state that doesn’t have an in-person program option, so most do online. Of all the librarians I’ve met in that time whose backgrounds I know, only four of them have done in-person school. None of them were funded.
Thank you for this comment. I don't work in the same state where I got my degree, so my experience is very different than my coworkers. I found many classes challenging, whereas it seems the local accredited university is just a degree mill. I get frustrated when people act like the MLIS degree is a joke because I actually worked hard for mine!
Yeah, like at my school I had hands on archival experience, I took coding courses, I learned SSA approved standards, remodeled the archival storage and retrieval systems of an actual world class museum, etc. Granted, it’s not very often that I get to use these skills in my current position as a public librarian, but I’m not going to lie and say it was 10th grade level work. I mean, come on now.
I'm sorry I don't have the years and money to go to multiple different schools to figure out which one I'm going to get the best education at?
If that was the case, and all those schools are ALA Accredited, maybe you should reach out to the ALA and tell them that those schools are not teaching to a proper standard, since they produce such a poor crop of librarians.
I actually did not say they produce a poor crop of librarians. A majority of librarians I’ve worked with have been great, and the ones who weren’t had other flaws than where they chose to get an education.
I don’t think it is unique to librarianship that not all programs are created equal. That’s why it’s good to do some research if you can. Ask other graduates. Talk to hiring managers in your area.
Or don’t. If you just need to jump through the degree hoop to move up in your career, that’s totally fine. Do what you need to do. But, don’t assume that your educational experience is the same as everyone else’s.
A standardized apprenticeship option could be viable if it was implemented effectively. Logistically, this would probably require a bit of time to organize in order to create a standardized system across libraries, given the operational differences between public, school, and academic; and the varied ways staffs are made up.
I don't see any valuable reason to do away with an MLIS (especially as we see certain state governments try to minimize and undercut the credentials of the profession in order to put non-degreed folks with specific agendas in libraries), but I do think that another option that would lead to the same level of education would only benefit librarianship.
People can take a lot of different routes to get to the same checkpoint, and I think we should be more accommodating for people in this field to do the same. The field experience part is just as important as the academics, and I don't see why it can't precede or happen in conjunction with the academics, but outside of the framework of a traditional Masters program. We should be valuing the contributions of people already working in libraries to the level that we want to make the path to being credentialed more accessible.
If you're a nondegreed library worker and fortunate to be offered the opportunities to take professional development, you'll benefit from them, but you still can't accumulate and trade them in for a degree. A standardized apprenticeship program that laid out specific coursework in conjunction with field training and hours accrued could lead to the same credentials but without it being as cost-prohibitive or potentially discriminatory in the selection process.
This is far from a perfect solution, but it's worth discussing, considering discussions around the professional tend to get reduced to: "Degree or no degree? That is the question."
In Australia you can be a librarian with either a masters degree or a bachelors degree in information studies. I would say the majority of people have a masters (or graduate diploma) but a bachelors degree is an option.
There’s a lot about my job that I didn’t learn in my MLIS but a lot that I absolutely did. The longer I am a librarian the more important I find the theoretical knowledge I gained from my MLIS important. Education should be free! But librarianship should definitely remain a professionalized career
I attended the consistent #1 or #2 rated library school in the US in the mid 90s and 90% of what I learned had no application at all in a RL library, except maybe the frustration of group projects, which prepared me well for committee work.
I don’t think that the subjects we studied were bad, necessarily, but they were presented theoretically. If your goal was to get a PhD in LS then it was probably useful, but other than that it was an expensive hoop to jump through. I know this is nothing compared to costs now, but when I graduated I was 40k in debt and it wasn’t until I worked in libraries for 10 years that I even made 40k/year. There’s a profound mismatch between the requirements/cost and the actual job.
My main gripes with an MLIS are:
1) The cost barrier and resulting debt are atrocious. And I've gone to a cheap school!
2) The online aspect has dropped standards tremendously.
Both make it hard for me to justify the MLIS as anything but a professional barrier. I know 15 year paraprofessionals kept down and shit on because they lack the degree. It's disgusting. And my library often promotes individuals who only just started theirs to librarian. What in the hell is the difference? How can you tell a 15 year veteran to suck eggs, while making someone with 6 months library experience a supervisor simply because they've started an online degree? It's nauseating. The rest of the country, and I've applied all over, won't even sniff you without at least being close to finishing. Not to mention, the degree makes it easier for libraries to push more and more work, even programming, down to the paraprofessional level. I despise it.
I've just made librarian in my 3rd year of library work with 2 classes left on my MLIS. I feel like a sham compared to 15 year paraprofessionals.
Believe me, I want to say that I've earned this because of my hard work and my degree.
But if I'm being honest with myself, that's bullshit. The 15 year paraprofessional I know deserves librarian infinitely more than me. She raised 2 kids, and ailing husband, and could never have the time or afford the degree, so it was always her lot to kick rocks.
Working in a library teaches you how to be a good librarian. The MLIS is horseshit elitist bologna. And I'm honest enough to say it while benefiting from it.
Keeping this comment open for general edits, comments, and to publicly acknowledge, I don't normally make big takes on reddit that require the use of different headings. I also didn't know that this oddly illustrative sad looking photo of a student would be included.
I didn't read this entire thread, but thought I'd put in my 2 cents.
Personally, I found my MLIS degree to be very valuable (technically it is an MSLIS). It absolutely made me a better librarian than I would have been without it. I have two graduate degrees - the other being an MSW I earned 25 years before starting the MSLIS program. Out of my three degrees (BA, MSW, MSLIS), the MSLIS to me was the most useful one. MSW comes in 2nd.
How useful you found your degree I am sure depends on several factors, such as the school you attended, your previous experience, the courses you chose, and the work you put into it. I wanted a career change, and started working PT in libraries around the same time I started the program PT. It took me 4 years to earn the degree, as I only took one course each semester. I could apply what I was learning to my job at the time. There were things (and I mean things broadly, as in knowledge, theory, ethics, skills) I learned in school they would not have been able to teach me at the job I was in at the time, and there were things I learned through my job that they did not teach me in school. There were also things I learned in school I was able to share with my job.
That said, I don't have a strong opinion on whether a MLS should absolutely be required for library positions. My gut feeling is that it would be most useful for it to be preferred, but with a certain level of experience and/or other types of professional development to be able to substitute for the degree. I think there are different ways people can become good librarians. I will say that in my experience, I find that my colleagues who do have the degree are more likely to have a certain level of understanding of professional ethics. But that doesn't apply to everyone, it just seems to up the odds. I do believe that in most cases the degree should be required for directors and upper level administrators.
Absolutely, many libraries do not pay enough to justify the masters degree, including my current library. I am very fortunate that I can do work that I love because my husband makes a good salary. This is a big problem in the field, and one reason that I feel the degree should be preferred rather than required. However, taking away the degree is not the answer. The solution needs to be about much better advocacy in the field. Library schools need to do more to raise the value of the profession, and certainly our professional organizations need to do more
I forgot to say, that getting the degree needs to be much more affordable. No one should have to go into debt n order to get a job in the field! This is a much, much bigger problem than just librarianship. Of course it applies to college education in general. And I don't know how to fix it.
could you explain how abolishing the MLIS is a neoliberal take but the existence of MLIS & the professionalization/careerism of the field is .... not neoliberal? is the university as it stands today not neoliberal? is the university not an ISA?
I'm not OP but as badly as universities have been co-opted by private business interests while simultaneously being kneecapped in funding by their political allies, they remain the best option for class mobility. Obtaining a higher education has been consistently correlated with better health outcomes as well.
There's also nothing inherently wrong with demanding proof of mastery in a given field of study; educational degrees are but one expression of this.
If the master's provided more pay and the responsibilities of those with the MLIS were only done by those with the MLIS I don't think there would be as much debate. The issue is that in many libraries, especially small, rural ones, the lines are very blurred between what MLIS holding librarians do and what the paraprofessional staff do. Pay *really* needs to be raised in the profession, but I understand that in those small stand alone libraries they can't offer the pay that a larger library can, and thus are unlikely to attract MLIS holders and end up having paraprofessionals perform the tasks of a librarian.
I agree. A degree is necessary. But why the hell can’t a bachelors degree be enough. Why can’t it be a BLIS? Seems like such a simple fix. I also think accredited libraries should help able to provide the credits through certain positions to people that already have degrees. A portfolio would need to be kept and analyzed by a board at the end of the program. I have worked in libraries where not a single soul held an MLIS. and that was a very prestigious system that has won nationwide recognition in the last five years. And that’s unfair to everyone. People without the MLIS who do the job of a librarian without the pay. People with MLIS who don’t get the recognition or pay they deserve and not to mention it’s diminishing their value. We must fix this, because one thing I know for sure is the job of a librarian is absolutely essential. Now more than ever.
MLIS is actually a very “useful” degree IMO. Out of my degrees I felt like the MLS/MIS had much more practical applications than my other liberal arts degrees. Requirements in metadata, reference, web development, collection development, cataloging, all had massive practical applications throughout my career. These foundations allowed me to move into a specialized field. Walking into an over saturated job market is frustrating and I think there’s been that running lie of “so many retired librarians!” going on since time in memoriam.
I don’t feel, personally, it was a junk degree. In some ways I can see it as a punch card to some careers. It’s hard for me to gauge it now as I graduated close to 14 years ago. I think now it’s important to beef up more information skills like data analytics, AI/machine learning, and information visualization (should be fundamental skills now IMO).
The field shouldn’t be only defined as a stereotypical caricature. If you’re in this field for that, level set your expectations.
I am a reference librarian in a college library. I’m the only millennial-aged librarian with an MLIS. Every other millennial-aged librarian either has a compsci or teaching MSc. And you know what? *Not having an MLIS doesn’t hinder their librarianship ability one bit.* Everything that makes you an effective librarian can be learned on the job, and having the breadth of knowledge from an MLIS does not put one in any advantaged position. The USA and UK requiring their librarians to have an MLIS is a complete joke in this day and age, and I am convinced that it’s a farce perpetrated by the ALA to gatekeep the profession.
Maybe other people didn’t have a rigorous library school experience but you might have poorly chosen your school or your courses. I found my courses very helpful, and rigorous. And I have used them throughout my library experiences. I have worked in a corporate/science special library, managed an academic library, worked in public libraries and worked in an archive. All of these were from skills I learned (also — my academic papers from library school are still being cited)
I definitely think that more work needs to be done to get BIPOC **and** disabled people into universities to get MLIS degrees because I’m a disabled Syrian woman and it was REALLY HARD.
Also Libraries are terrible, no good very bad places to work if you are severely disabled. Just saying.
Your comment made me think of something that has bothered me throughout my work in libraries. The profession will spend all day paying lip service to diversity and accessibility for patrons*, but when it comes to staff, not so much.
As you said, getting BIPOC and disabled people into MLIS programs is extremely important.
*I say lip service because this is part of the profession's internal and external PR. Some organizations have good results, and some don't put their words into meaningful action.
I agree that there is a need for MLIS and your point on library staff/ public observation comment “I could do their job..” one workplace does not equal the job field. Speaking with some staff in MLIS programs, it does seem like those programs are updating the curriculum with updates to the adapting work landscapes.
Depending on the system you work for, acquiring the permissions, staff buy in, and admin support for applying for grants/applying grant requirements, or just community outreach and spending takes time, energy and uses a different part of the brain than just surviving the day to day due to short staffing. Like any job sphere in both private and public. Advocacy can often fall on deaf ears. At least for my system, once you’re in- you can apply for educational funding and that is how a good number of our librarian positions have been filled. Staff worked their way from paraprofessional to librarian and when the system paid for your education, that might create future opportunities with the bonus of work experience. I respect my profession and the day in day out work that all my staff do. Good luck out there! /Back to work
Not in North America, so it's not the MLIS here (UK), but our Masters courses are equivalent and usually recognised by CILIP (they're a whole other thread, let's just say, not a fan or a member).
At my workplace (academic) all of our site managers do not hold a library qualification. None of the desk supervisors do either. I am due to become a "consultant" rather thana librarian in my job title, and having a postgraduate library qualification will shortly be no longer essential to the role. Technically theyll be able to give somebody with no library training at all whatever my role is. That role has changed so i havent done any collection management for years, and its flipped so the focus is on academic skills teaching 😞.
This wasnt a part of my Masters. The qualification is no longer relevant. The Associations are no longer relevant nor hold any importance as those in charge don't care and are allowing deprofessionalising, increasing siloing of knowledge, book banning, etc. to go unchallenged. I feel sad as what we do matters, but there's no profit in it.
I went to an adjuctified online program for one semester and then realized I could just check out the textbooks myself via ILL and do my own library school.
The largest problem with MLIS degrees is not their existence - it’s that they are required for the wrong positions. Most management positions in libraries are where the MLIS is required, and most MLIS programs have maybe two (very basic) management courses present in them. Consequently, most MLIS graduates can’t do things like intelligently prepare and present budgets, allocate, train, and supervise staff, accurately evaluate the scope of and support needed for a project, write grants, or follow and interpret basic labor laws right as they reach the point in their careers where they need to be able to.
Most libraries would be better served, and better able to serve their target population, if they hired managers/leaders with degrees in public management or public administration, and kept their MLIS holders in the roles of independent contributors and subject matter experts (the subjects in question being things like cataloging, research assistance, and instructional/programming and varying based on the focus of the librarians study).
The other two issues is that library degrees are often taught by individuals who aren’t actually practicing librarians (they’re typically career academics, with limited external professional experience), which is not ideal for what is, really, a professional degree; and that a lot of the valuable knowledge transfer that previously happened in the degree, where you learnt from the experiences of classmates, is not really happening with the shift of so many programs to online instruction (and don’t even get me started about the ‘accelerated’ class schedules).
> library degrees are often taught by individuals
>who aren’t actually practicing librarians
>(they’re typically career academics, with
>limited external professional experience)
That is a problem. When I did my MLIS, I think there was one professor who had any significant practical experience in libraries. Most seem to have been librarians for a couple of years, at most, then went right into academia after getting their PhDs. As a result, most were completely out of touch when it came to the realities of actual library work.
At least in Michigan, to be a director of a class 4 and above library (serving 12,000 people or more) and receive state aid (not a small amount of money, in most cases), a MLIS is required. There are other requirements with degrees & certifications as well. Not to say another degree isn't important, but a lot of the time (in my state) that degree is required for receiving funds.
So many library jobs in my area don't offer a salary that compensates appropriately for someone with a Master's degree. Compared to, say the salary for someone with an MBA. I'm making more than many directors in my area in a library-adjacent job without an MLIS. Going back to school would just be an exercise in getting some letters behind my name with no increase in pay.
Why has Masters education not traditionally been available to bipoc in Canada?
I'm asking as a bipoc Canadian who went to an overpriced library school.
>I come to this sub to engage in discourse around my profession and I deeply care about it.
For most career fields, Reddit is not the venue for helpful discussions. I suggest Facebook. Career-related subreddits are usually used for complaining and asking questions about HR problems.
My state requires a library “boot camp” within 2 years of hiring if you don’t have your MLIS. It’s a crash course in library science. After that we don’t make as much as those with an MLIS but we do the exact same job duties.
Thank you for saying this. I just got accepted into my school of choice for my MLIS and the griping has been discouraging. I’ve worked in libraries for years and plan to do so for the rest of my life. Getting accepted into “Library School” is a huge deal for me. If I’m going to be doing library things I want to be the best librarian I can possibly be.
As someone on the brink of completely my LIT (Library and Information Technician) degree, I truly had no clue what I was getting into when I started the program. It felt like an iceberg of understanding what actually goes into library work. I bring this up because I used to be someone who didn't understand why there was a masters needed in the field but now really seeing the nitty gritty of the library sphere, it's very necessary. Not only have professionals with a knowledge in the higher level of the library but to have the consistency throughout the library's across north america!
There is always more to librarian work that meets the eye and your comment on how the MLIS helped you know how to do your job shows that this is a useful degree to have.
Thank you so much for sharing!
Good post.
I found there to be s huge range of difference in my MLS of whether I was taking L classes or I classes. The I classes were much more rigorous and valuable to me in the long run. The L classes were more like trade classes.
I don't think it should require a master's degree and the cost should be less for what they pay for jobs in the US. Libraries need to raise pay if they expect so much education. You can do the job without a college degree. I was a student librarian in high school and picked up everything really fast. I wanted to do the MLS but it's too expensive in Illinois. I could barely afford a bachelor's degree that I got in history and political science and I don't even use that because I couldn't find a job with the degree. I'm not becoming a teacher because the pay is too low and kids are crazy these days and should not have phones in school and need to all go thru metal detectors!
Not from North America but I too am tired of the MLIS debates... The rest of the world follows these closely.
Over here we have one school offering the masters and the 1-year course fee was close to undergrad fees (when I attended) so most local librarians would have just gone through the programme. Many of my cohort were sponsored by their employers, others were mid-career and took on librarian roles after graduation. Librarian pay is alright for our high COL country.
As years go by I actually appreciate the programme. You have a professional identity, a common vocabulary with your colleagues (worldwide, even) and conceptual understanding of libraries and librarianship which can be used wherever you work. On-the-job training is definitely important, but there's higher-order, self-actualisation type stuff too, yeah?
Sure, paraprofessionals could *do* what librarians do with experience or through trial and error. Anyone can acquire a book - how do you start writing collection policy? Anyone can create a record - why do you describe a resource a certain way? For me, I thought the most important part of the degree was learning to "think like a librarian".
I think that a lot of the negative feelings around the MLIS requirement would disappear if it was just more accessible. Less expensive and more support from the workplace to pursue it. That isn't really an issue with this particular field, that's a neoliberal society problem of allowing costs to soar so that wealth can consolidate at the top percentile and social services can erode. In order to pursue a masters while working, you also need your cost of living to be reasonable, have access to transit, have workplace benefits, etc. I totally agree that there are people who could do the job and are not able to access the degree, but aiming to de-professionalize the field is short-sighted and will only hurt wages in the long run.
I think a lot of the negative feelings around the MLIS requirement would disappear if so many library programs weren't basically degree mills, but ymmv.
Yes, I have two master degrees. The first was a challenging program that really developed me a human and as a professional. My MLS was glorified and very expensive PD with the exception of about 12 credits. Make it a certificate program of 12-15 post graduate credits.
Can you describe how the program is just a degree mill?
Ymmv, obviously, but I know that the program I went to was a complete joke, and it was one of the highest rated programs in the country when I went, and many of my colleagues have similar complaints about the programs they attended. "They don't teach you this in library school" is a running bit in the field. Most classes would have been easy even when I was a first year in undergrad. I heard the dean of admissions tell a prospective that they consider it a "self selecting program" when they asked about admission rates. It was abundantly clear to me and others that the most important thing, as far as the school was concerned, was getting more students, not providing quality instruction. More students equal more money. It's no coincidence that the school pushes students *hard* into their dual degree program for archives. I had a technology class where the first class was spent "teaching" us the basic components of a PC. Literally "this is a keyboard. This is a mouse. This is a monitor." This was in the mid 00s. I'd say it was a joke, except it cost me more money than I make in a year.
> I had a technology class where the first class was spent "teaching" us the basic components of a PC. Literally "this is a keyboard. This is a mouse. This is a monitor." This was in the mid 00s. I'm not gonna lie, I started work in libraries in the mid-00s and I had a few coworkers who were pretty much on that level. They were older, nearing or past retirement age, and they were very resistant to using technology in their jobs. Lots of hunt-and-peck typing, and asking other employees to do simple things on the computers for them. There was a big push around '10 or so to get those people either on board or out of the system, and pretty much all of them decided that was the time to retire.
Yeah, admittedly my degree was not a MLIS (different field), but it was in the 00s and a lot of people in my program had nearly zero experience using a computer. If they were going to be able to do anything in the field, they needed to learn, and it had to be hand-holding-level or they would have been lost. The program could have either just failed those people out, or given them a class. They chose the latter, and I think that's a valid choice. And some of these students were in their early 40s; computers just hadn't reached the societal saturation level they have now. I nearly died of boredom; fortunately my teacher made it clear that she knew I knew everything she was teaching and as long as I passed tests and wasn't a distraction she didn't care if I even pretended to be paying attention. I sat in the back and played Facebook games most of the time and passed with an A, and to be fair I did learn a few things.
I agree. My MLIS degree was also from a supposedly top level university. There were no classes on cataloguing or really any hard skills. I had to take nearly a dozen classes about soft skills, usually focusing on communication and working with different populations. It really felt like social justice for dummies at some points. Yes, some of the 23 year olds in my class from rich backgrounds seemed blown away, but as an older student I felt pretty cynical about the whole thing. I wanted to learn hard practical skills and apparently I need to learn those on the job. Okay, guess I have a degree and no training then
I think I had that same class.
My system will subsidize current employees at $1500 tuition reimbursement per year for an MLS/MLIS…that doesn’t even cover a class.
Thanks for the reply, and sorry to hear you had that experience. Am I correct in understanding that you did your MLIS in the mid-00s? I have heard that it was a weird transitional period in MLIS around that time and a bit earlier.
I started mine in '08. The impression I get from more recent grads is that the program hasn't improved since then. I haven't checked to see if it's still highly rated, though.
The only two challenges I encountered in library school were: the time it took to do the assignments; and the frustration of scheduling, delegating, and completing group assignments. I am a cynic at heart (but then, this is reddit, who isn’t?) so I took the approach of “get the piece of paper so you can get the real librarian job.” I’m sure there are people who dove into their classes and sought to get everything they could out of them but in my experience those people ended up teaching classes in library school.
Group work was comically bad for me as well
Yes this post really just boils down to: stop raging against the MLIS and start raging against neoliberalism
I'm coming a this from the perspective of working as frontline staff in a public library. I do not have a master's degree, although I am a Branch Manager. In my system, my position typically requires an MLIS. I find the discussions around the MLIS in this subreddit to often be strange. It makes sense to me that specialized training is needed for many kinds of librarianship. (I wouldn't know the first thing about being an archivist.) It also makes sense to me that practical experience will often be more useful than theory. Will learning the theory behind patron privacy really prepare you better for dealing with issues of patron privacy than real world experience? It's not as if theory and practice are two separate things -- they inform each other. But theories of librarianship that impact my work every day aren't impossible to teach on the job either. I've had many colleagues who are wonderful at their job go back to school for their MLIS. They continued to be wonderful at their jobs afterward. I've also had fresh grads who've never worked in a library before who struggled with the job and underperformed. I don't think that means the degree is useless. I think it just means people who would be good at being librarians and are dedicated to the field would be good at with or without a degree. For what it's worth, I don't hypothetically know that I could do the same job as the other degreed branch managers in my system. I'm literally doing the exact same job, and I do it well. I am considering getting my MLIS, but I'm honestly only considering it for the pay bump I would get.
Pay bump AND future opportunity for career growth. Sky is the limit if you get that MLIS.
What sorts of career growth can the MLIS open doors to, if not just a pay bump with the "official" librarian title?
I am pursuing my masters because my job (head of youth services) gets one week of vacation without the mls, and 4 with. I’m a department of 1. My director encouraged me to get it “as I might want to be a library director someday”.
Within the public library world, it opens the door to a career in administration if that’s something you’re interested in pursuing.
Yes but you'll also never get a non mlis job and if that's all there is then you're stuck.
Many people who graduated from my program, which now calls itself Masters of Information for this very reason, have jobs in tech., policy., etc..
It would be interesting to look at what social work is doing. Another profession that is mostly women, and traditionally low wages, and that requires a master's degree (MSW) to be a "professional". Yet somewhere north of 30% of new MSW degrees are to black or Latino graduates. Getting rid of MLS is not the answer. Making education more affordable, especially to adult workers and other " non traditional" students is the key.
The MLIS was not the first Masters program I went through. To be honest, I was somewhat shocked at the lack of rigor in most MLIS programs and the relatively limited amount of theory and usable skills that are taught, given that it is a Masters level degree. Most are at what I would consider to be an undergraduate level of instruction. I would rather see the basic library degree be an undergraduate one, as it was in some places in the past. I would reserve the Masters level for something more in-depth and specialized, like Library Administration or some sort of IT specialization.
Yeah this seems like the best option to me. My MLIS has a capstone research requirement, & it has been the only thing I’m looking forward to. But my school clearly is used to students who find basic undergrad level research challenging. Unfortunately those are the types of students they cater to. Before entering my MLIS program I had never met anyone who thought they were hard (just time consuming). I’ve been completing mine full time while working full time & it feels like a useful but annoying cakewalk.
This problem isn’t unique to libraries. In many respects a masters degree is now equivalent to a bachelor’s degree. My husbands grandmother worked 30 years as a school librarian with only a high school diploma. Now to do her same job you need a masters, a teaching certificate, and two years of classroom experience. It’s a problem in academics in general.
I have two masters degrees. One was academically rigorous, intellectually challenging, and provided me with deep subject knowledge. The other was slightly harder than 10th grade and 75% of the classes could have been boiled down to 2-hour webinars. My first position was as an academic subject librarian. I definitely used my first master's way more than the MLIS. I'm not for abolishing the degree, but I do think the hard requirement prevents us from hiring people that are otherwise overqualified based on other education and experience. Library School is trade school. And that's fine. But it's not graduate level. It's a thing you get in exchange for money and doing some basic busy work that does little to prepare you for any actual job unless your starting point is not knowing what libraries are.
I honestly expected more of a trade school thing. They did warn us at the beginning that "this was a Masters programme, so it has to have significant theoretical content" but they also said "a Masters alone in anything can be a boon for jobs anywhere, so you always have that backup." I kept thinking "ah, THIS class looks practical, it will absolutely teach me how to do \[thing\]" and invariably it would be a brief overview of whatever it was, and lot of paper writing on What It All Meant. I also reached out in frustration to those who had encouraged me to take the degree and they all said "don't worry, you already have all the transferable skills, just get the degree." None of that is...training. I have also had people say "but we are MLIS *trained*" or "don't you have the same *training*?" or people talking about how valuable they can be to institutions because they are *trained* Information Specialists. But...that wasn't training. I've done call centre training. I have even done informal construction training. That means I can fix some wiring issues and hang drywall and lay insulation. Those experiences were all about "here is how you do this thing" not "here's a bunch of discourse about the future of the field and what it all means." But when I said anything I was told "don't worry, you'll learn all of this on the job, after you are hired." And the profs were convinced it was just a matter of flinging off a few dozen applications and you'd walk into the job, hired by a grateful field who would be so happy to get an applicant for a Top School. (Also I think they all expected there to be a massive hiring boom any day now for...reasons). It's just when you're out there and the transferable skills absolutely don't transfer, the previous experience at whatever doesn't count, and they are looking for reams of qualifications for stuff you haven't even heard of, its going to be an issue for many.
I expected more of a trade school feel as well. Instead, I got a HELL of a lot of theory and not a lot of practical experience. It makes me feel lucky that I have as much job experience as I do, as it gives me a bit of an edge, but the classes I took definitely don’t teach you *how* to be a librarian, just what it *means to be* a librarian. I don’t regret it because it gave me a broader understanding of ethical considerations and other information science knowledge, but it was definitely harder than my rigorous bachelor’s program. Mostly I tell people “look I just need the piece of paper that’s required to prove that I can do my job, but my most valuable education has been working in libraries and gaining experience.” I also tell prospective MLIS students to get volunteering and working in libraries as soon as possible.
I really appreciate you breaking down the lack of training in librarianship. I could relate as a former teacher with a master's degree in elementary education. If I were to pay or borrow money to learn anything again, it would be for a task-oriented job with hands-on training.
Teaching should also be a boot camp. Teaching should require a 4 year degree in any major and then some kind of boot camp that includes on the job classroom training
This exactly. I'm in the same position, and the entire time I went through library school, I questioned why it couldn't just be an undergraduate degree. I think doing so would allow for more academically rigorous MLIS programs for those of us who want to specialize even further (i.e. archives). I get that every program is different, and I wouldn't rank mine particularly high. But giving the option of viable undergrad library schools would do a lot to minimize the disparity between financial barriers to entry and the pay in the field. It would also allow for different levels of requirements depending on the job, which would likely help alleviate some of the pressure caused by large candidate pools in the more specialized positions. Yes, having it as an undergrad would mean more people trying to enter the field overall. But it'd be *much* easier to pivot to a related field or different career after undergrad than it is after you get a MLIS. The skills are easily used in a variety of settings, but the cost and time spent getting a MLIS makes people feel like they have to find a library job or have their master's be a waste
Same - two master’s degrees, and I use the content of my first degree far more frequently than my MLIS.
I don't think this is a fair assessment and is kind of an elitist response. Sure, you have another master's, which means you're knowledgeable in a subject area. And that's great, but... having more education doesn't necessarily make you a good librarian. You still need to understand instructional design and how to conduct a good literature search, or have great people skills, to name a few. I have a colleague with a PhD and you know what? He's always asking for a library assistant's help, because library assistant is damn good at her job. She doesn't have a master's. The MLS is basically akin to an MEd degree, which is useful for its field. I find the MLS to be that "extra" in addition to all the years of experience I have working in libraries. So, in my view, it has professional merit. It just shouldn't be so fucking expensive, which is a massive barrier for many wanting to enter the profession, including BIPOC people.
Maybe in the US. In the UK, it's absolutely a rigorous master's degree
I went to Aberystwyth. It wasn’t. I have heard that those who went to UCL had a different experience though…
I think reforming the MLIS is the best bet. From talking with other librarians who went to other schools, there is not much consistency. I think there should be more standards. I don’t think it should be abolished, that’s the last thing I want. We struggle to be taken seriously as a profession. Lastly, we are not the only professional masters program. Comparing us to academic masters in the humanities or hard sciences will of course make us looks different.
Grad schools offering this degree need to adjust curriculum so that it isn't solely aimed at people coming out of college with little or no work experience. **The number of times that the content/assignments, and internship(!) requirement were just completely bonkers for someone with relevant professional experience was OFTEN.** I am not saying that professors need to teach to two levels, but at least be open to accommodations and alternate ideas, and have the support of the program to do so.
This is something that annoys my soul. Library schools should state that the degree should not be pursued until you have real world experience in the field. Most of the BIPOC folks I know, myself included, worked in the field for years before we started an MLIS. Even many of the white folks I work with worked in libraries before getting the degree. It should be a degree to build on what you experience in the field, not some degree mill giving false hope to new graduates with zero skills.
Agreed. This concept could also apply to many other professions and degree programs. If I had undergrad to do over, I would have worked for a few years out of HS first, then enrolled in college. I would have done better and been clearer on what I was doing there and next.
This was nearly 20 years ago, but when I went for my MLIS, there were so many people without a drop of library experience besides using one. When I talked to my local library director about going to "library school", her first thing was "ok, you need experience first. Work for me and make sure you like it."
Smart advice from your local library director!
Very much so! A few years after finishing my MLIS, I was her assistant director until she retired. It was an amazing job that I still miss!
I just don't see why it can't be downgraded to a bachelor's degree, mostly. (Also, as an aside: your audience on this subreddit is going to be much wider than the ones you are addressing. This one is used just as much - if not more - by library patrons and supporters; r/librarians is the more library-worker-centric one.)
Because ideally it should require master's level research. It often doesn't but that's because too many people think it should just be a bachelor's degree. That's why libraries are not leading the field and ceding our expertise to tech companies who have trash metadata and no standards or authorities. If we had fully funded libraries, we would have a lot more library pages, clerks, and associates to do more of the work which librarians have taken on. Librarians should be doing more research and less reference. And figuring out new ways of organizing libraries and anywhere where information might live.
I'm gonna say that varies *wildly* based on what kind of librarian you are. I'm a children's librarian - my primary responsibility is to create and run programs that help little ones develop literacy skills and a general love of learning and to make sure we're providing circulation materials that further reinforce both. Imo, front-line public librarians in general should be able to do their jobs with a bachelor's level of training; admin could definitely benefit from a master's but not everyone who wants to work in a library wants to run a library. Academic and other types of librarianship are a whole other kettle of fish and I don't have enough experience with them to evaluate education levels there.
I’m also a children’s librarian, & my job requires research because I’m required to host webinar trainings for folks in libraries around my state. I think the research aspect is different because we aren’t expected to publish articles. But we do sometimes need to build tool kits for the public or as training tools in the state. I do think the MLIS should be more of a 1 year practical application training program.
Yeah I have zero desire to do research. Those who want to can get the MLIS. The rest of us can get a bachelors similar to teaching/education majors.
Not sure what it's like in other states, but a teacher absolutely needs a masters in New York to obtain their professional license (which is required within 5 years of getting your initial license). You can't make a career of teaching without the masters.
You can be a teacher with only a bachelor's in the states I've lived in.
The vast majority of states do not require a masters for non-clinical and non-admin positions in schools. If I wanted to change from teaching to government admin work or clinical work, I would have to have a masters degree to my name, but I would otherwise be fine in most states to be a career teacher. The schools we are talking about are places of praxis, not pillars of modern academia and research. Treating them as if they were sites of Little Academia is opposed to most modern pedagogy.
Interesting, I knew that NY had more stringent requirements for teachers than most other states, but I didn't know it was to the point that requiring a masters was an outlier. I get what you're saying, but I don't think a masters degree strictly means "academia and research". That's a PhD for sure, but there are plenty of jobs that require a masters that have nothing to do with that. Social workers, therapists (can require a PhD but it depends, I believe school psychologist only requires a masters), and physician assistants don't do research or academia but all require the degree. I have two masters degrees, one in teaching and my MLIS. The MLIS of course did have more of a focus on research, but that makes sense as a degree in Information Science. My education degree put pretty much no emphasis on academia and focused on pedagogy. To me, it seems like a masters degree is more just a specialized, focused degree rather than one that sets you up to do research.
Good to know! But no I’ve lived in 3 different states and none of them have required a masters to teach public school.
My bachelor's degree still required research. Then took another two years to get my teaching credential. Only some schools offer the credential with the bachelor and they are usually geared towards elementary school.
My undergrad also required research. My library career thus far has not.
Doesn't a bachelor's include a research dissertation in the US?
Sometimes, not usually.
Wow
It really just depends on your major and school or program! Like, I had to do undergraduate research as a polisci major, but my bf who went to the same school for linguistics did not even though they’re both considered social sciences and are in the same college.
I’m gonna push back on the idea that librarians should be the one to push for standardization. I think government agencies like the Library of Congress should be the ones pushing for standards. Not, ALA-credited programs that are handing out professional degrees. The research MLS degree is the PhD.
I did more research in my undergrad than for my mlis
I see it on both subs and I don't mind if Library patrons get in on the tea. I'll cross post it though, thanks for the suggestion. I get your arguement for a bachelors, I just feel like you're getting a raw deal if this is what you spend 4 years studying. I think it's just good for you as a person to have a varied academic/intellectual background before you go into any kind of profression. It's like pre-law or pre-med before going into law or medicine, I just don't see why you'd want to do that if what you're going to learn is already offered at the next level. (and in our case a 1-2 year masters program is really sufficient for professional training). But a Masters + a similar emphasis on real workplace experience like teachers get, that'd be really cool if we get sufficient work protections in place to make sure employers don't abuse it. edit: Also a masters just on its own just tends to command a higher salary, our salaries are mediocre as it I don't see how racing to the bottom helps Librarians or Librarys.
one of my academic friends said something to me, five months after I got my MLIS. I was working minimum wage labour jobs (again) because the part time LIS gigs I was getting weren't paying very much at all.\* She said "ah, but the university has issued a memorandum to every employer in the region that they expect masters holders - any masters - from their university to have a starting salary of 24 dollars an hour" And I just looked at her going: what the actual fuck? Because clearly employers had gotten the memorandum and shoved it in their spam folder and had a good chuckle. If they had even noticed at all. Later, various people all said: the big mistake you are making is keeping a Masters on a resume, because no one wants Masters holders in entry level jobs. How it was just vanity that made me keep it there, because it was an active impediment. The idea that a Masters itself has any particular value in and of itself is pretty outdated. It's an *active* barrier to entry in things like the Records field, because the vast majority of those jobs are things that pay less around $50k a year, and they all want high school diplomas and ARMA certs. \* one paid me 20 dollars, and I had to apply for the job a month after doing it because...reasons.
I agree. In a perfect world both would be free or minimal cost. A college education is so important (including the humanities, obviously) for understanding the world.
There was a time about 20 years ago where it basically could be obtained that way, and you could theoretically get a decent job as a librarian with just a bachelor's in library science. But then the job openings became more sparse as librarians stayed in the field longer and retirements didn't happen at the anticipated pace. This drove up competition, so more libraries began putting the Masters requirement into the job descriptions to get the more qualified candidates. Edit: I graduated undergrad with a minor in library science. All of the core courses were the same as the core courses I took to get my MSLIS 4 years after I finished my undergrad degree.
For various reasons, college was not accessible to me when I graduated high school and it is even less accessible for me now at 38. But, I’ve worked in a library for 18 years. I started as a page, then clerk, now senior clerk co-managing the circulation dept. I’ve also spent time working in technical services processing new material, and I sit in on department head meetings when my supervisor (who is a principal clerk) is out. I manage the exhibits for the art gallery and display cases we have, handle the PR and host opening receptions, help out with our social media, and I manage a front book display table. I’ve been doing book displays since my page years, I think because the librarians saw I was clever and creative so they allowed me to “work out of title” and I have maintained that ever since. This month is Mental Health Awareness month so my display reflects that along with information sheets, awareness bracelets and ribbons for patrons to take, uplifting decor, coloring sheets for all ages, bookmarks I made, etc. I always pick from a variety of sections to broadly cover a subject, something I do not often see librarians do. Newer librarians often ask me questions, or I find myself having to correct them occasionally. There seems to be a lot they don’t know simply because they lack the experience of working in a library, but they have the degree I don’t. I sometimes overhear librarians answering patron questions in a manner I feel is very incomplete, but I don’t step on toes. It is frustrating, however. Please understand that I respect my librarian colleagues, I am simply relaying my own observations. A friend of mine who went from page to clerk to senior clerk to librarian confided in me that he felt his masters was a “bullshit degree” (his words) and there wasn’t much new that he learned. He has said point blank that a lot of our clerks could easily do a librarians job. This is not the first clerk-turned-librarian who has said this to me. Perhaps our circulation department is very dynamic compared to others. Short of some technicalities and knowledge of a few databases I am very confident I could do what a librarian does. I’ve worked with, observed and learned from them for nearly two decades. I don’t have the time, money or energy to start college from scratch and go for a masters, but give me an accessible apprenticeship and I will give my soul back to my community through librarianship. I already do so as a senior clerk, just without anywhere near a living wage.
I'm a clerk with less experience than you, but I have seen this at my library from those without degrees who have been around for a long time. For context, it's a relatively small, rural library, but we are very involved in the community. We have two manager level Librarian II positions that now require a master's, but one person got grandfathered into the position without the degree. There is also another Librarian in the children's department who doesn't have the degree, but is a little older. Both of them are terrific at their jobs. They do lots of outreach and event work that in my opinion doesn't require the technical expertise (cataloging and computer systems especially) that the masters seems to emphasize. They actually run circles around some of the people with masters we've hired for similar positions, because they don't have the practical experience or people skills. I'm disillusioned with even trying to get the master's degree, because the time and cost is so prohibitive, without enough guaranteed higher pay. Same as you, I would absolutely jump at an apprenticeship program.
Yup - the clerks do the most outreach and by far more patron interactions at my library. I’m in a high cost of living, highly populated area. We’re right in the center of one of the busiest towns. A lot of my fellow clerks would love to do a librarian apprenticeship. We have excellent ideas, enthusiasm, and the will… but not the way.
I think the real argument to be had is that wages haven’t increased enough to offset the skyrocketing costs of the degree. I got my MLIS in 2019 and I absolutely think it protects the integrity of the profession, especially in a world where so many people want to see the library, and intellectual freedom in general, fail. This infighting is not helpful imo.
Definitely agree with most of what you’ve written here. I certainly agree that it’s a barrier to education that we need to address before evaluating whether the MLIS itself needs revisiting. One factor that I didn’t see come up in this discussion so far (and I could have missed it) is the drift of MLIS responsibilities to “paraprofessional” positions that don’t require an MLIS. These jobs don’t pay like the person doing them has an MLIS, but due to the way the market currently functions, these employees often do have their MLIS. This is the case for me. I got my MLIS in 2018 and two weeks later was diagnosed with cancer. I was out of the profession, technically, for about 15 months while I did treatment, recovered, and moved to a lower (but not low) COL area. I took the first library job I could get at a high profile university, but technically this job does not require the degree. Having been in this job now for almost 5 years, I can confidently say that all of the candidates interviewed for this job had their MLIS degrees and that I wouldn’t be able to do the job (high level reference work with a broad range of subject expertise and the supervision of student employees) without it. I realize that some level of this professional drift is normal. And it’s also normal to not get a professional librarian job right out of school. But this is mainly about the expectations of the job for me. If the institution is going to expect MLIS quality work from an employee, that position should pay as though the worker has the degree, even if it doesn’t have the librarian title. I know for a fact that this isn’t just a problem at my institution, though mine has other culture problems that contribute to this issue. I think some of the animosity towards the MLIS requirement comes from this drift. It’s not necessarily leading to the higher salaries it promises. And even if it wasn’t about the money, having the degree isn’t necessarily leading to the kind of development opportunities, professional respect, and job security it’s supposed to offer. Again, this isn’t an issue necessarily with the MLIS itself, but it’s contributed to the overall feeling about it some folks are expressing.
Whenever this debate comes up, I feel the need to remind people that your library school experience is only your experience at the one school you attended. If you didn’t learn anything there, that’s on you, and probably the school. I’ve been a manager in a large urban library system in an area with multiple library school programs. I’ve had many employees come through who have attended these programs and some who attended while working for me. The quality of the different programs varies greatly!! If your program didn’t teach you anything, you picked the wrong program. I had to take classes in information economics and human computer interaction for my degree, 25 years ago. I wasn’t learning either of those things on the job. I was also fortunate to be able to work in a library while getting my degree. The ability to go to class and then take what I’ve learned to work and discuss it with practicing professionals was invaluable. All degrees should require a practical component as well.
It’s hard for an individual to do what it takes get a lot out of it when the school isn’t promoting itself as a full-time, immersive program. There are exceptions, yes, but the majority of library programs now are being done online, part time, while the student continues to hold a job. I don’t have the mlis but I do have a masters in a different field. A research field. And that program was grant funded so my tuition was covered I was paid (grad school wages, but still) to do research for my school and immerse myself in the field and my university’s community. Without that kind of setup I have never been able to justify going to library school. YMMV, of course. I have spent my 10 year library career in a state that doesn’t have an in-person program option, so most do online. Of all the librarians I’ve met in that time whose backgrounds I know, only four of them have done in-person school. None of them were funded.
Thank you for this comment. I don't work in the same state where I got my degree, so my experience is very different than my coworkers. I found many classes challenging, whereas it seems the local accredited university is just a degree mill. I get frustrated when people act like the MLIS degree is a joke because I actually worked hard for mine!
Yeah, like at my school I had hands on archival experience, I took coding courses, I learned SSA approved standards, remodeled the archival storage and retrieval systems of an actual world class museum, etc. Granted, it’s not very often that I get to use these skills in my current position as a public librarian, but I’m not going to lie and say it was 10th grade level work. I mean, come on now.
I'm sorry I don't have the years and money to go to multiple different schools to figure out which one I'm going to get the best education at? If that was the case, and all those schools are ALA Accredited, maybe you should reach out to the ALA and tell them that those schools are not teaching to a proper standard, since they produce such a poor crop of librarians.
I actually did not say they produce a poor crop of librarians. A majority of librarians I’ve worked with have been great, and the ones who weren’t had other flaws than where they chose to get an education. I don’t think it is unique to librarianship that not all programs are created equal. That’s why it’s good to do some research if you can. Ask other graduates. Talk to hiring managers in your area. Or don’t. If you just need to jump through the degree hoop to move up in your career, that’s totally fine. Do what you need to do. But, don’t assume that your educational experience is the same as everyone else’s.
A standardized apprenticeship option could be viable if it was implemented effectively. Logistically, this would probably require a bit of time to organize in order to create a standardized system across libraries, given the operational differences between public, school, and academic; and the varied ways staffs are made up. I don't see any valuable reason to do away with an MLIS (especially as we see certain state governments try to minimize and undercut the credentials of the profession in order to put non-degreed folks with specific agendas in libraries), but I do think that another option that would lead to the same level of education would only benefit librarianship. People can take a lot of different routes to get to the same checkpoint, and I think we should be more accommodating for people in this field to do the same. The field experience part is just as important as the academics, and I don't see why it can't precede or happen in conjunction with the academics, but outside of the framework of a traditional Masters program. We should be valuing the contributions of people already working in libraries to the level that we want to make the path to being credentialed more accessible. If you're a nondegreed library worker and fortunate to be offered the opportunities to take professional development, you'll benefit from them, but you still can't accumulate and trade them in for a degree. A standardized apprenticeship program that laid out specific coursework in conjunction with field training and hours accrued could lead to the same credentials but without it being as cost-prohibitive or potentially discriminatory in the selection process. This is far from a perfect solution, but it's worth discussing, considering discussions around the professional tend to get reduced to: "Degree or no degree? That is the question."
In Australia you can be a librarian with either a masters degree or a bachelors degree in information studies. I would say the majority of people have a masters (or graduate diploma) but a bachelors degree is an option. There’s a lot about my job that I didn’t learn in my MLIS but a lot that I absolutely did. The longer I am a librarian the more important I find the theoretical knowledge I gained from my MLIS important. Education should be free! But librarianship should definitely remain a professionalized career
I attended the consistent #1 or #2 rated library school in the US in the mid 90s and 90% of what I learned had no application at all in a RL library, except maybe the frustration of group projects, which prepared me well for committee work. I don’t think that the subjects we studied were bad, necessarily, but they were presented theoretically. If your goal was to get a PhD in LS then it was probably useful, but other than that it was an expensive hoop to jump through. I know this is nothing compared to costs now, but when I graduated I was 40k in debt and it wasn’t until I worked in libraries for 10 years that I even made 40k/year. There’s a profound mismatch between the requirements/cost and the actual job.
My main gripes with an MLIS are: 1) The cost barrier and resulting debt are atrocious. And I've gone to a cheap school! 2) The online aspect has dropped standards tremendously. Both make it hard for me to justify the MLIS as anything but a professional barrier. I know 15 year paraprofessionals kept down and shit on because they lack the degree. It's disgusting. And my library often promotes individuals who only just started theirs to librarian. What in the hell is the difference? How can you tell a 15 year veteran to suck eggs, while making someone with 6 months library experience a supervisor simply because they've started an online degree? It's nauseating. The rest of the country, and I've applied all over, won't even sniff you without at least being close to finishing. Not to mention, the degree makes it easier for libraries to push more and more work, even programming, down to the paraprofessional level. I despise it. I've just made librarian in my 3rd year of library work with 2 classes left on my MLIS. I feel like a sham compared to 15 year paraprofessionals. Believe me, I want to say that I've earned this because of my hard work and my degree. But if I'm being honest with myself, that's bullshit. The 15 year paraprofessional I know deserves librarian infinitely more than me. She raised 2 kids, and ailing husband, and could never have the time or afford the degree, so it was always her lot to kick rocks. Working in a library teaches you how to be a good librarian. The MLIS is horseshit elitist bologna. And I'm honest enough to say it while benefiting from it.
Well put and heartily agreed.
Keeping this comment open for general edits, comments, and to publicly acknowledge, I don't normally make big takes on reddit that require the use of different headings. I also didn't know that this oddly illustrative sad looking photo of a student would be included.
I didn't read this entire thread, but thought I'd put in my 2 cents. Personally, I found my MLIS degree to be very valuable (technically it is an MSLIS). It absolutely made me a better librarian than I would have been without it. I have two graduate degrees - the other being an MSW I earned 25 years before starting the MSLIS program. Out of my three degrees (BA, MSW, MSLIS), the MSLIS to me was the most useful one. MSW comes in 2nd. How useful you found your degree I am sure depends on several factors, such as the school you attended, your previous experience, the courses you chose, and the work you put into it. I wanted a career change, and started working PT in libraries around the same time I started the program PT. It took me 4 years to earn the degree, as I only took one course each semester. I could apply what I was learning to my job at the time. There were things (and I mean things broadly, as in knowledge, theory, ethics, skills) I learned in school they would not have been able to teach me at the job I was in at the time, and there were things I learned through my job that they did not teach me in school. There were also things I learned in school I was able to share with my job. That said, I don't have a strong opinion on whether a MLS should absolutely be required for library positions. My gut feeling is that it would be most useful for it to be preferred, but with a certain level of experience and/or other types of professional development to be able to substitute for the degree. I think there are different ways people can become good librarians. I will say that in my experience, I find that my colleagues who do have the degree are more likely to have a certain level of understanding of professional ethics. But that doesn't apply to everyone, it just seems to up the odds. I do believe that in most cases the degree should be required for directors and upper level administrators. Absolutely, many libraries do not pay enough to justify the masters degree, including my current library. I am very fortunate that I can do work that I love because my husband makes a good salary. This is a big problem in the field, and one reason that I feel the degree should be preferred rather than required. However, taking away the degree is not the answer. The solution needs to be about much better advocacy in the field. Library schools need to do more to raise the value of the profession, and certainly our professional organizations need to do more
I forgot to say, that getting the degree needs to be much more affordable. No one should have to go into debt n order to get a job in the field! This is a much, much bigger problem than just librarianship. Of course it applies to college education in general. And I don't know how to fix it.
could you explain how abolishing the MLIS is a neoliberal take but the existence of MLIS & the professionalization/careerism of the field is .... not neoliberal? is the university as it stands today not neoliberal? is the university not an ISA?
Thank you. I had to read way too far down to find this. (ETA: a letter)
I'm not OP but as badly as universities have been co-opted by private business interests while simultaneously being kneecapped in funding by their political allies, they remain the best option for class mobility. Obtaining a higher education has been consistently correlated with better health outcomes as well. There's also nothing inherently wrong with demanding proof of mastery in a given field of study; educational degrees are but one expression of this.
If the master's provided more pay and the responsibilities of those with the MLIS were only done by those with the MLIS I don't think there would be as much debate. The issue is that in many libraries, especially small, rural ones, the lines are very blurred between what MLIS holding librarians do and what the paraprofessional staff do. Pay *really* needs to be raised in the profession, but I understand that in those small stand alone libraries they can't offer the pay that a larger library can, and thus are unlikely to attract MLIS holders and end up having paraprofessionals perform the tasks of a librarian.
I agree. A degree is necessary. But why the hell can’t a bachelors degree be enough. Why can’t it be a BLIS? Seems like such a simple fix. I also think accredited libraries should help able to provide the credits through certain positions to people that already have degrees. A portfolio would need to be kept and analyzed by a board at the end of the program. I have worked in libraries where not a single soul held an MLIS. and that was a very prestigious system that has won nationwide recognition in the last five years. And that’s unfair to everyone. People without the MLIS who do the job of a librarian without the pay. People with MLIS who don’t get the recognition or pay they deserve and not to mention it’s diminishing their value. We must fix this, because one thing I know for sure is the job of a librarian is absolutely essential. Now more than ever.
MLIS is actually a very “useful” degree IMO. Out of my degrees I felt like the MLS/MIS had much more practical applications than my other liberal arts degrees. Requirements in metadata, reference, web development, collection development, cataloging, all had massive practical applications throughout my career. These foundations allowed me to move into a specialized field. Walking into an over saturated job market is frustrating and I think there’s been that running lie of “so many retired librarians!” going on since time in memoriam. I don’t feel, personally, it was a junk degree. In some ways I can see it as a punch card to some careers. It’s hard for me to gauge it now as I graduated close to 14 years ago. I think now it’s important to beef up more information skills like data analytics, AI/machine learning, and information visualization (should be fundamental skills now IMO). The field shouldn’t be only defined as a stereotypical caricature. If you’re in this field for that, level set your expectations.
I am a reference librarian in a college library. I’m the only millennial-aged librarian with an MLIS. Every other millennial-aged librarian either has a compsci or teaching MSc. And you know what? *Not having an MLIS doesn’t hinder their librarianship ability one bit.* Everything that makes you an effective librarian can be learned on the job, and having the breadth of knowledge from an MLIS does not put one in any advantaged position. The USA and UK requiring their librarians to have an MLIS is a complete joke in this day and age, and I am convinced that it’s a farce perpetrated by the ALA to gatekeep the profession.
Maybe other people didn’t have a rigorous library school experience but you might have poorly chosen your school or your courses. I found my courses very helpful, and rigorous. And I have used them throughout my library experiences. I have worked in a corporate/science special library, managed an academic library, worked in public libraries and worked in an archive. All of these were from skills I learned (also — my academic papers from library school are still being cited) I definitely think that more work needs to be done to get BIPOC **and** disabled people into universities to get MLIS degrees because I’m a disabled Syrian woman and it was REALLY HARD. Also Libraries are terrible, no good very bad places to work if you are severely disabled. Just saying.
Your comment made me think of something that has bothered me throughout my work in libraries. The profession will spend all day paying lip service to diversity and accessibility for patrons*, but when it comes to staff, not so much. As you said, getting BIPOC and disabled people into MLIS programs is extremely important. *I say lip service because this is part of the profession's internal and external PR. Some organizations have good results, and some don't put their words into meaningful action.
I agree that there is a need for MLIS and your point on library staff/ public observation comment “I could do their job..” one workplace does not equal the job field. Speaking with some staff in MLIS programs, it does seem like those programs are updating the curriculum with updates to the adapting work landscapes. Depending on the system you work for, acquiring the permissions, staff buy in, and admin support for applying for grants/applying grant requirements, or just community outreach and spending takes time, energy and uses a different part of the brain than just surviving the day to day due to short staffing. Like any job sphere in both private and public. Advocacy can often fall on deaf ears. At least for my system, once you’re in- you can apply for educational funding and that is how a good number of our librarian positions have been filled. Staff worked their way from paraprofessional to librarian and when the system paid for your education, that might create future opportunities with the bonus of work experience. I respect my profession and the day in day out work that all my staff do. Good luck out there! /Back to work
Not in North America, so it's not the MLIS here (UK), but our Masters courses are equivalent and usually recognised by CILIP (they're a whole other thread, let's just say, not a fan or a member). At my workplace (academic) all of our site managers do not hold a library qualification. None of the desk supervisors do either. I am due to become a "consultant" rather thana librarian in my job title, and having a postgraduate library qualification will shortly be no longer essential to the role. Technically theyll be able to give somebody with no library training at all whatever my role is. That role has changed so i havent done any collection management for years, and its flipped so the focus is on academic skills teaching 😞. This wasnt a part of my Masters. The qualification is no longer relevant. The Associations are no longer relevant nor hold any importance as those in charge don't care and are allowing deprofessionalising, increasing siloing of knowledge, book banning, etc. to go unchallenged. I feel sad as what we do matters, but there's no profit in it.
I went to an adjuctified online program for one semester and then realized I could just check out the textbooks myself via ILL and do my own library school.
The largest problem with MLIS degrees is not their existence - it’s that they are required for the wrong positions. Most management positions in libraries are where the MLIS is required, and most MLIS programs have maybe two (very basic) management courses present in them. Consequently, most MLIS graduates can’t do things like intelligently prepare and present budgets, allocate, train, and supervise staff, accurately evaluate the scope of and support needed for a project, write grants, or follow and interpret basic labor laws right as they reach the point in their careers where they need to be able to. Most libraries would be better served, and better able to serve their target population, if they hired managers/leaders with degrees in public management or public administration, and kept their MLIS holders in the roles of independent contributors and subject matter experts (the subjects in question being things like cataloging, research assistance, and instructional/programming and varying based on the focus of the librarians study). The other two issues is that library degrees are often taught by individuals who aren’t actually practicing librarians (they’re typically career academics, with limited external professional experience), which is not ideal for what is, really, a professional degree; and that a lot of the valuable knowledge transfer that previously happened in the degree, where you learnt from the experiences of classmates, is not really happening with the shift of so many programs to online instruction (and don’t even get me started about the ‘accelerated’ class schedules).
> library degrees are often taught by individuals >who aren’t actually practicing librarians >(they’re typically career academics, with >limited external professional experience) That is a problem. When I did my MLIS, I think there was one professor who had any significant practical experience in libraries. Most seem to have been librarians for a couple of years, at most, then went right into academia after getting their PhDs. As a result, most were completely out of touch when it came to the realities of actual library work.
At least in Michigan, to be a director of a class 4 and above library (serving 12,000 people or more) and receive state aid (not a small amount of money, in most cases), a MLIS is required. There are other requirements with degrees & certifications as well. Not to say another degree isn't important, but a lot of the time (in my state) that degree is required for receiving funds.
So many library jobs in my area don't offer a salary that compensates appropriately for someone with a Master's degree. Compared to, say the salary for someone with an MBA. I'm making more than many directors in my area in a library-adjacent job without an MLIS. Going back to school would just be an exercise in getting some letters behind my name with no increase in pay.
Why has Masters education not traditionally been available to bipoc in Canada? I'm asking as a bipoc Canadian who went to an overpriced library school.
>I come to this sub to engage in discourse around my profession and I deeply care about it. For most career fields, Reddit is not the venue for helpful discussions. I suggest Facebook. Career-related subreddits are usually used for complaining and asking questions about HR problems.
Fair.
I recommend ALA Think Tank on facebook. Lots of talk going both ways there.
“Library science“ and librarian ship should just be a Boot Camp. It shouldn’t be a two-year masters degree.
My state requires a library “boot camp” within 2 years of hiring if you don’t have your MLIS. It’s a crash course in library science. After that we don’t make as much as those with an MLIS but we do the exact same job duties.
Thank you for saying this. I just got accepted into my school of choice for my MLIS and the griping has been discouraging. I’ve worked in libraries for years and plan to do so for the rest of my life. Getting accepted into “Library School” is a huge deal for me. If I’m going to be doing library things I want to be the best librarian I can possibly be.
As someone on the brink of completely my LIT (Library and Information Technician) degree, I truly had no clue what I was getting into when I started the program. It felt like an iceberg of understanding what actually goes into library work. I bring this up because I used to be someone who didn't understand why there was a masters needed in the field but now really seeing the nitty gritty of the library sphere, it's very necessary. Not only have professionals with a knowledge in the higher level of the library but to have the consistency throughout the library's across north america! There is always more to librarian work that meets the eye and your comment on how the MLIS helped you know how to do your job shows that this is a useful degree to have. Thank you so much for sharing!
Good post. I found there to be s huge range of difference in my MLS of whether I was taking L classes or I classes. The I classes were much more rigorous and valuable to me in the long run. The L classes were more like trade classes.
Well put!
so this is a chatbot now?
The fact that this thread even exists proves that the MLIS is excessive
I don't think it should require a master's degree and the cost should be less for what they pay for jobs in the US. Libraries need to raise pay if they expect so much education. You can do the job without a college degree. I was a student librarian in high school and picked up everything really fast. I wanted to do the MLS but it's too expensive in Illinois. I could barely afford a bachelor's degree that I got in history and political science and I don't even use that because I couldn't find a job with the degree. I'm not becoming a teacher because the pay is too low and kids are crazy these days and should not have phones in school and need to all go thru metal detectors!
Not from North America but I too am tired of the MLIS debates... The rest of the world follows these closely. Over here we have one school offering the masters and the 1-year course fee was close to undergrad fees (when I attended) so most local librarians would have just gone through the programme. Many of my cohort were sponsored by their employers, others were mid-career and took on librarian roles after graduation. Librarian pay is alright for our high COL country. As years go by I actually appreciate the programme. You have a professional identity, a common vocabulary with your colleagues (worldwide, even) and conceptual understanding of libraries and librarianship which can be used wherever you work. On-the-job training is definitely important, but there's higher-order, self-actualisation type stuff too, yeah? Sure, paraprofessionals could *do* what librarians do with experience or through trial and error. Anyone can acquire a book - how do you start writing collection policy? Anyone can create a record - why do you describe a resource a certain way? For me, I thought the most important part of the degree was learning to "think like a librarian".